UK’s digital-only Starling Bank adds Apple Pay support

Digital-only UK “challenger” bank, Starling Bank, has added support for Apple Pay — meaning its customers can now add their Starling debit card to their Apple Wallet and make contactless payments drawing from funds in their Starling account via their Apple devices.

Multiple UK banks and building societies already support Apple Pay, including the major high street banks. Although Starling says it will be the first bank in the UK to offer in-app provisioning for Apple Pay users which means that new Starling customers will be able to load their card into their digital wallet virtually, before the physical MasterCard debit card arrives in the post.

Apple pay is accepted as a method of payment by “hundreds of thousands” of retail locations in the UK, according to Apple. Back in May, the company also suggested a majority of UK POS terminals were now able to support higher value contactless payments via the tech (those that don’t support unlimited payments have a cap of £30).

Aside from offering contactless payments with a layer of biometric security, Apple is pushing the privacy angle to drive uptake of its payment tech, noting on its website that “your card details are never shared by Apple when you use Apple Pay, making purchases with your iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and Mac is the safer, more private way to pay”.

Apple Pay shields users’ credit or debit card numbers from this type of tracking because the numbers are not stored on a user’s device nor on Apple’s servers. Instead, a unique Device Account Number is assigned, encrypted and securely stored in the Secure Element on the device, with each transaction authorized via a one-time unique dynamic security code.